NATO, Afghan Army Raid Kills Nine, Wounds 25

CHAGHCHARAN, Afghanistan: Nine people were killed and 25 wounded in an overnight operation launched by Afghan and the NATO-led coalition troops in the western province of Ghor, a provincial official said Wednesday, adding that local residents said most victims were civilians.

“According to initial reports by our security forces, nine people were killed and 25 others injured during a night raid operation against militants conducted by Afghan Special Forces supporting by the coalition troops in Sharhrak district overnight,” a spokesman for provincial government, Abdul Hai Khatibi, told Xinhua.

After local residents claimed that several women and children were among the casualties, the local government has launched an investigation into the incident to determine whether the killed were militants or civilians, he said.

Meantime, the NATO-led coalition or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed that the ISAF is aware of reports of possible civilian casualties during the operation in the province 360 km west of Kabul.

“(The) ISAF can confirm an incident early this morning in Shahrak district, Ghor province in which an Afghan and coalition security force killed several insurgents during an operation to detain a Taliban leader,” the ISAF’s Joint Command said in a text sent to Xinhua via email.

…

Three civilians were accidentally killed during an operation in eastern Logar province over the weekend, Afghan and coalition forces said.

The deaths of civilians by NATO-led troops during operations against Taliban fighting Afghan and about 100,000 coalition forces have long been a contentious issue between the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO forces in the insurgency-hit country.

Afghan officials had in the past stressed such deaths would further undermine the war against Taliban and terrorist groups and inflame an anti-foreign sentiment in the country.

A total of 1,145 Afghan civilians were killed and 1,954 injured in conflicts in the first six months of 2012…

CHAGHCHARAN: Nine supporters of an armed commander, Mullah Mustafa, were killed during an airstrike by foreign troops in the Shahrak district of western Ghor province, an official said on Wednesday.

The raid was carried on Mustafa’s residence in the Dahan-i-Morgha area of the district on Tuesday night, Governor Syed Anwar Rahmati told Pajhwok Afghan News. But Mustafa, who allegedly has links to the Taliban, escaped unhurt in the raid, he said.

One of the commander’s associates, Qayamuddin, said eight people were killed and as many injured in the airstrike. Most of the victims were Mustafa’s family members.

A statement from International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), meanwhile, confirmed the incident, in which an Afghan and coalition security force killed several insurgents.

“ISAF is aware of reports of possible civilian casualties resulting from this operation. It takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously, and is assessing the facts surrounding this incident.”

What a bunch of mendacious cowards NATO’s ISAF spin doctors are proving to be.
The cited Xinhua report insinuates that the incident was a joint Afghan/ISAF operation and, in so doing, glosses over the fact that ‘Afghan Army’ forces don’t have the night-vision gizmos they would need to ‘lead’ a night raid. So, right there, we can safely assume precisely whose operation it was (and was not).

By the end of the second report, from Pajhwok Afghan News, it’s pretty obvious that the ‘Afghan Army’ was incapable of being an active participant in the AIR raid because the ‘Afghan Army’ doesn’t have an aeroplane, let alone an air force.

Add to the above the revelation of a significant CIVILIAN death toll and that leaves NATO’s (and only NATO’s) remote-control slaughter fingerprints all over the crime scene. Imo the only thing they omitted was a reference to the very strong likelihood that this was,in reality, just another impulsive and opportunistic NATO drone strike on a recklessly mis-identified target.

It never made sense that the people losing the fake war in Afghanistan (US-NATO-ISAF) would claim to be training the people who are winning (the Afghans) how to defend themselves. The way this story has been massaged adds further credence to the theory that NATO’s cowards and liars need to hijack the imprimatur of “Afghan Army” to conceal their own crimes of desperation and redneck incompetence reminiscent of Jubilation T Cornpone..

There is so much pent-up local anti-NATO feeling in Afghanistan that NATO’s exit will probably make the British exit look like the Teddy Bears Picnic. I’d bet money that no-one will be more surprised than NATO if more than half of their troops get out of Afghanistan alive.

Keen insights all.
After the contretemps over the NATO slaughter of Pakistani troops in Salala last November and the (further) antagonizing of Russia over the U.S.-NATO interceptor missile system at the same time, those two nations could have – simultaneously and instantly – given NATO its Dien Bien Phu in South Asia. One which would have substantially slowed down the West’s plans for Syria. And Iran. Mali. Belarus. Venezuela. Zimbabwe. Sudan. And others.

Yes, that’s quite interesting – in a roundabout sort of way. The take-away message for me is that, even 132 years ago, it was as difficult for inconvenient truths to get oxygen, ie access to a broad readership, as it is in 2012.

One could argue that the astute observations of writers such as Gore Vidal and many others have been similarly treated as ‘quaint’ by the mechanism which dictates that media catering to populist, anti-intellectual discourse makes its owners wealthy enough to become part of the establishment elite and thereby abuse their power by cherry-picking content in order to betray their readers by promoting the elite agenda through:
– suppression of astute contrary opinion
– overwhelming astute opinion by giving more space to spin-doctored elite opinion
and
– publishing myopic, biased (and often amusing) critiques of opinions which are deemed ‘dangerous’ in elite circles.

But in the end it doesn’t, and won’t, matter; because ‘elites’ are, first and foremost, cowards – hence all the threats, bullying, lying and faux patriotism. History shows that the tendency of elites.to believe too much of their own bullshit (for too long) always brings them unstuck. I just hope I live long enough to see it, taste it and smell it, this time around.

richardrozoff

October 27, 2012 at 1:20 am

Eça de Queiroz’s observations are apt not only for the time they were written but currently as well, particularly his reference to offsetting Russian influence in Central and South Asia.
What his contemporary the English poetaster Kipling called the Great Game.
When the U.S. took up the mantle of the British Empire in many parts of the world after World War II, it assumed the former British role in Afghanistan (the wars of 1839-1842, 1878-1880 and 1919). Hence the mujahedin proxy war of 1978-1992.
Astute men of letters like Eça de Queiroz – and Oscar Wilde – understood the geopolitics of the region, which have not changed in the interim.
That sort doesn’t exist any longer. Gore Vidal, whom you mention, was the last of them.